The agency says the monitors will check for compliance with the Voting Rights Act and other federal laws that bar discrimination in the voting process and require officials in some places to provide language assistance.

Seward County is required to provide language assistance to Hispanic voters.

The Justice Department was also sending monitors Tuesday to polling places in Cook County, Ill. Cook County is home to the city of Chicago and is required to provide language assistance to Hispanic, Chinese and Asian Indian voters.

The department says it deploys hundreds of observers each year to monitor elections throughout the country.